Star Trek: Second Generation
by Totem Of Storms
Summary: The Enterprise 1701-D begins its mission of exploration. This is a new spin on the series, starting from the beginning. Read the intro (chapter 1) for more details.
1. Chapter 1: Introduction

**Star Trek: Second Generation**

**The Concept**

The basic idea behind Star Trek: Second Generation, is to take The Next Generation's setting and give it the kind of changes that were applied to Battlestar Galactica when that was revamped. In some places the changes have been major (for instance the number of alien races has been reduced from a new one every three or four weeks to a handful of major players), while some have been minor.

**The Command Crew**

Captain Picard - Largely unchanged, though fighting to keep things peaceful in a more militant world. He is more definitely in charge here, since the military nature of Starfleet is being emphasised. His past interests in archaeology and the like are perhaps more obvious as I'm bringing them in from the start rather than inventing them partway through.

Cmdr Riker - Also largely unchanged.

Lt Cmdr Data - Chief of Operations. Handles communications, sensors, and so forth.

Lt Cmdr La Forge - Chief Engineer, right from the word go.

Lt Cmdr Worf - Tactical officer. This is redefined as being in charge of military actions such as hazard teams, weapons, and the like. Worf's background as a orphan is being used right from the start (where in the actual series he was just included for the same reasons that Chekov was in the Original Series); this does mean that his understanding of Klingon culture is more limited than it might otherwise be.

Lt Yar - Chief of Security. Reporting to Worf, Tasha is effectively the chief of police aboard the ship, handling day-to-day affairs of disruption and backing up Worf with military actions.

Commissar Troi - Political Officer. In the nicest possible way; Deanna's job is to keep an eye on the mental and psychological health of the crew, but also primarily to advise the captain on Starfleet and Federation policies when handling situations. She's still an empath, and as such a member of Starfleet's Telepath Guild (rated E5 on a scale up to E14).

Dr Crusher - Chief Medical Officer.

**Other Significant Characters**

Wesley Crusher - Given the more military orientation of the Second Generation Starfleet, Wesley doesn't get as much of a look-in as he did during The Next Generation. He is present, but will not have as much input as previously.

Guinan – El-Aurian with a history with Picard. Still works in Ten Forward. Some of her history has changed.

CPO O'Brien – Transporter chief and engineer. Largely unchanged to begin with, but his military background is there from the start.

**The Enterprise**

Designed more firmly for military operations, the Galaxy class is still primarily a ship of exploration and discovery. It's just that the exploration is undertaken with a bit more care than in The Next Generation.

The ship now features a lot less windows, presenting more solid armour plating across the hull. Similarly, the bridge is now two decks down into the saucer section rather than on top of it. There is additional armour which can be extended across the hull to augment the weaker areas (those with windows).

This emphasis on armour doesn't mean that there aren't shields. The shields are, if anything, more powerful, but are not intended to be the sole line of defence.

The ship's weapons have been augmented as well; phaser arrays are still present, along with the torpedoes, however these are joined by point defence weapons (lasers and phasers) as well as pulse phaser turrets. Three modular mounts are built into the ship (rear spine and underside of the saucer section on either side) which can be fitted with alternate weapon systems or other systems.

Crew quarters are smaller than aboard The Next Generation's Enterprise. There are however more definite facilities for crew aboard; the barber, tailor, chaplain, toilets, etc.

Operationally there is one major change (aside from the more military shift of the feel): the use of Hazard Teams. These are specialist away teams comprising military trained personnel from various fields. It is as common to find an engineer or medic in a Hazard Team as to find a security officer. There are three nominal teams aboard the Enterprise, dividing their time between their regular duties and training for their away team missions. In practise the membership of the individual teams varies depending on who is immediately available and the needs of the mission.

**Starfleet and the Federation**

Starfleet is the defensive and exploratory arm of the Federation. While their duties sometimes extend into carrying vital cargo, the carrying of bulk cargo is largely left up to others. Primarily Starfleet is made up of Human ships, augmented by ships from other Federation members when necessary.

The Federation is made up of several races: Humans (including Betazoid sub-species), Vulcans, Andorians, the El-Aurian Remnant and the Gorn. A couple of other races are known about, but are primitive enough not to have been contacted yet.

Vulcans have their homeworld and three colonies, plus assorted Outposts. Technologically they are more advanced than Humans, but in military strength their ships are merely equal to Human ones.

Andorians developed earlier than Humans, but did so with a slightly more belligerent edge. Their infighting with the Vulcans has been going on since their first contact, and though it has calmed down somewhat there is long-term resentment in some areas.

The El-Aurian Remnant occupy a single planet, granted to them when they arrived in Federation space shortly after the treaty was signed with the Klingon Empire. Long-lived, they tend not to develop technology quickly, though are quite at home with other people's technology when confronted by it. Few of them move beyond their adopted homeworld, but those who do tend to get themselves into a situation and then watch and listen with a patience that most people cannot understand.

The Gorn joined the Federation shortly before the treaty with the Klingon Empire. Relying on raw power for their technology, their ships are less sophisticated than Human ones, but make up for it with raw power.

Federation space is roughly five hundred light years across. At warp five this is a six month journey to cross. It contains roughly a thousand stars, with about a hundred worlds which are M-class or can be easily converted to M-class (defined as Terracompatible). These include the homeworlds of the Vulcans, Andorians and Gorn.

The Romulans are based anti-spinward of the Federation. The Klingons are coreward. Pyrians exist all over the place. The area rimward of Federation space is defined as 'wild', being largely uninhabited and devoid of M-class worlds.

Communications across the Federation are handled in three ways. Firstly, regular subspace communications: this works at an effective warp five, meaning that messages will take up to six months to get from one side to the other.

Secondly, boosted subspace communications: these are when subspace signals are boosted, accelerating them to nearly-infinite speeds for roughly ten light years; they then decelerate over another twenty light years until they carry on at warp five. A booster relay network ensures rapid communications between major ports, however boosted communications can only be directed rather than broadcast.

Thirdly, the Ansible: utilising quantum entanglement principles, the Ansible allows for instantaneous communications between two linked points. Creating these links is expensive, and thus far Ansibles can only be found on homeworlds and at three strategic points around Federation space. Additionally an Ansible was provided to each of the major empires neighbouring the Federation.

Ranks in Star Trek are normally kept to a minimum: ensign, lieutenant, lt commander, commander, captain. I'm extending and modifying this somewhat as follows: crewman (in place of seaman or private), Petty officer (a sergeant effectively, with a Chief Petty Officer rank for special cases), ensign (technically outranked by the Petty Officers, but holding relatively menial positions in places of authority), lieutenant, lt commander, captain. The rank of Commissar is held by the ship's political officer(s) and is outside the normal chain of command.

**Other Races of note**

Romulans

Vulcans who "ran beneath the raptor's wing", the Romulans have spread quickly over a fairly large area behind Federation space. Lacking numbers, they have a history of attempting subversion, espionage, and other similar forms of combat, rather than using outright military force. Their construction of a cloaking device grants them a military advantage over most other groups, even if they are unable to fire or use warp drive while cloaked.

Klingons

A military power with a warrior culture, the Klingon Empire is older than Humanity (though slightly younger than Vulcans). They were at war on and off with the Federation until seventy years ago. At that time, for no apparent reason, they rather abruptly turned around, establishing the Neutral Zone between themselves and both the Federation and Romulans, and then not getting involved in large scale wars with either side, despite some provocation from the Romulans. No one yet knows why, despite various efforts to find out.

In military strength the Klingons outdo the Federation on a one-on-one basis, however Federation ships tend be carry more specialised equipment; advanced weapon systems rather than ones relying on brute force. Overall the whole thing comes out about equal.

Pyrians

Borrowed from another Gene Rodenberry show, the Pyrians are a race who live on Venus-type worlds. Because of this their competition with the Federation for colonises tends to be limited, but complicated when it does occur, for a simple reason: Pyrian law does not recognise ownership of an area that you cannot enforce your control over. In order to claim ownership of a planet you need enough defences in orbit to interdict anyone trying to land on the surface. For this reason Pyrians have colonies all over the place, with no effective border linking all of their worlds, but crossing over other group's borders freely.

Technologically Pyrians are all over the place. They don't have transporters, limiting them somewhat in landing forces, and their impulse drive works at about half the speed of Starfleet designs. They do however have a warp cruising speed of 7.4 (where Starfleet is still limited to warp 5 cruising), and a limited cloaking device. Their equivalent of the Galaxy class ship (in terms of usage for exploration, contact missions, etc), known as a Torch Ship, outguns a Galaxy class ship like the Enterprise by roughly three to one.

Q

The Q exist, but even their most active member is somewhat less than as blunt about his actions; he has let slip that the Q have other things to attend to, and dislike attracting the attention of this particular plane of reality.

In practical terms, this means that the Q will be present, but in a less overt manner; the Encounter At Farpoint never happened (because the race living at Farpoint didn't exist), but Q's test did happen and was passed. Notably, the Q lack the ability (or willingness, it's hard to tell when they get coy about these things) to travel in time.


	2. Chapter 2: The Uncovered Then

**Star Trek: Second Generation – The Uncovered Then**

"Captain's log, stardate 41209.2. The Enterprise has been ordered to join the USS _Tsiolkovsky_, an _Oberth_ class science vessel which is observing the collapse of the star. Our purpose in being here is to assist with providing a wider sensor coverage during the critical days of the collapse. Our contact with the _Tsiolkovsky_ has been intermittent however."

"Contact re-established sir," Data declared from the Ops console at the front of the bridge. "Audio only. SS _Tsiolkovsky_, this is the USS _Enterprise_, please respond."

There was a pause, though whether it was from a real-time communications delay or from someone simply not speaking they couldn't tell, before a female voice came onto the channel.

"_Well hello there _Enterprise_. I hope that you have lots of lovely boys aboard_-"

Picard and Riker exchanged a look before Picard interrupted. "_Tsiolkovsky_, this is Captain Picard. Who am I speaking to?"

"_Call me Miranda, please_," the voice replied, an air which was no doubt intended to be seductive but which came across instead as intoxicated, creeping into the tone.

Picard glanced at Data, who nodded quickly in return. "Most likely Commander Miranda Reynard," the android informed him.

Picard nodded in response. "Commander Reynard, where is Captain Michaels?"

"_Oh, he's around. We're just getting the party really going here_."

Voices in the background appeared to be encouraging someone to do something. Picard was about to call to them again, when abruptly one of them cheered an instant before there came the sound of a howling wind over the channel, something that every member of Starfleet was familiar with from decompression drills. The voices were cut off, a couple of them in dismay, a couple of them in almost ecstasy, before the sound cut off.

"What was that?" Picard asked.

Data considered for a second, and then replied. "Portside emergency escape hatch. I believe that there were twelve people on the bridge when it was opened. From what they were saying, it would appear that it was a deliberate act. There would have been no survivors."

For a moment Picard stood there, unsure of how to respond to this. The idea that something could drive a crew to abandon their sense of self-preservation to this degree was incredible, and went against everything that he thought he knew about Starfleet crews; they were psyched and tested harshly at Starfleet Academy, those who couldn't take the strain being shuffled into less strenuous roles. Even a science vessel shouldn't have been vulnerable to something like this.

He recovered himself with a visible effort. "Commander Data, are there any life signs?"

Data considered for a moment, tapping at his console as he did. "Negative. Interference from the star is jamming our sensors. We cannot gain sufficient resolution to distinguish individual life signs. I can report that..." Data paused, rechecking his sensors. "Areas of the ship appear to have been greatly reduced in temperature. I cannot tell more from here."

Picard considered for a moment, still shaken. "Commander Riker, take an away team over there. Find out what happened."

"Captain," Commissar Troi interjected from her seat beside his, "we can't simply send an away team."

"Agreed," Worf declared. "Clearly there is a hostile force at work here."

"I wouldn't go that far," Troi replied, glancing over her shoulder at the Klingon officer who loomed over them from the raised area at the back of the bridge. "But clearly something is going on. A Hazard Team should be sent instead."

"Agreed," Picard replied. "Commander."

Riker nodded, tapping his commlink. "Hazard Team Alpha, report for deployment. I'll brief you in transporter room one in five minutes." He turned to Picard. "Captain, with your permission, I'd like to join them."

"Agreed commander. Take no unnecessary risks."

Riker nodded and headed for the turbolift. As the doors hissed shut Picard sat down in his chair again. "Commander Data, can we access the _Tsiolkovsky's_ internal sensors?"

"We can attempt to sir," Data agreed. "However, we will require your authentication in order to do so."

"I will be back in a moment," Picard agreed, standing and heading for his ready room. Once inside he paused once again, taking a breath which he couldn't allow the crew to see in order to steel himself, before heading for the desk and sitting down. "Computer, authenticate Picard, One Seven One Alpha Ellipsis."

The computer bleeped in acknowledgment. "Authentication confirmed. Please indicate your intended actions."

"Establish a link to the internal sensors of the _USS Tsiolkovsky_. Transfer sensor access and authentication to the bridge Operations station."

"Link established," the computer reported after a few seconds. "Local authentication required to obtain sensor data."

"Emergency override Western Charlie Four Mars. Local authentication is not available at this time. Check bridge life signs for confirmation."

There was a pause which, to Picard, seemed to stretch far too long before the computer bleeped in acknowledgement. "Authentication confirmed. Sensor access granted and transferred to Operations station."

Picard stood decisively, heading back out onto the bridge. "Commander Data, you should have access to the _Tsiolkovsky_'s internal sensors now."

"Aye sir," Data replied. "I am checking now. I can confirm that there are no life signs aboard."

"Are there any signs of attack?" Troi asked cautiously. "Any obvious signs of trouble?"

"There do not seem to be any signs of damage from combat or attack," Data replied. "I can however account for the bodies of all of the crew members, and..." He paused as he looked over the readings. "Most of the ship has a reduced temperature. I would suggest that some form of overrides were used to reset the environmental controls to such a dangerously low temperature. Many of the fatalities must have been from the cold."

"Could it be an enemy that is able to withstand the cold?" Worf asked. "Invaders wearing environmental suits would be able to wipe out the ship's crew in this manner."

"I cannot tell at this time," Data replied. "There are no signs of bodies other than those belonging to the crew however, and no signs of damage. The hazard team will need to investigate the possibilities of such an invading force themselves, however we have no evidence of the existence of one."

"Understood," Picard responded, rubbing his chin as he considered this news. "Continue to investigate the situation. What is our time to transporter range?"

"We'll need to come out of warp in two minutes, and then we'll be approximately fifteen minutes out from maximum transporter range," the navigator replied. "We'll want another couple of minutes onto that to be on the safe side."

"Understood," Picard sat back, staring at the stellar indicator chart showing on the main viewscreen and wondering about the mystery that this now presented to them.

Riker arrived in transporter room one just behind the last member of hazard team alpha. The rest of them were already pulling out and checking their basic tactical gear, but their team leader glanced round as Riker entered and came to attention, throwing a sharp salute.

"Commander Riker. What's the situation sir?" The rest of the team fell in alongside their leader, not saluting, but responding to the greater military training that they received as members of the hazard team.

"We're less than half an hour from the _USS Tsiolkovsky_," Riker informed them all. "Thus far we haven't picked up any signs of life aside from our last communication to them, during which it appeared that the bridge crew were sufficiently drunk that one or more of them, encouraged by the others, opened the bridge emergency escape hatch to vacuum. At present we believe the entire crew to be dead. We need to investigate the ship, work out what happened, and try to salvage what we can from it." He looked along the line, checking that they were all paying attention, and then focused on their leader. "Chief, I'll be accompanying you on this, but you'll be in charge of the operation."

Chief Petty Officer John Spartan nodded simply at this; his background, training, and even his genetics, made him the ideal leader on a mission like this, whereas Riker's training, though above average for hazard team operations, was nowhere near the same level. Even Riker's minimal genetic enhancement was nothing compared to Spartan's. It was normal policy for senior officers to defer to the team leader on a mission like this.

"Do we have any idea of the conditions over there?" Spartan asked.

"I'll need to check that," Riker replied, walking over to one of the primary panels on the wall and calling up the bridge. After only a few seconds wait, the minimal time necessary for Data to alert the captain to the incoming call and accept it, the screen changed to show a view of the bridge.

"Captain, do we have any update on the _Taiolkovsky_'s situation?" Riker asked.

"We've confirmed that there are no life signs," Picard assured him. "There are no signs of violence or hostility. Sensors don't report any bio-hazards of any kind that we wouldn't expect, including biologicals, radiation, and so forth. All we can find so far is that large parts of the ship have had their temperature artificially reduced to dangerously low levels."

"How dangerous sir?" Spartan asked.

"Low enough that many of the crew are believed to have frozen to death," Picard replied. "Temperatures across most of the living quarters are below freezing. Nothing that an environmental suit won't handle."

"I would add to this that the ship's heat-dump capacity is being very seriously taxed by the efforts to expel that much heat while in such proximity to the star," Data offered. "There is still some time before I would expect permanent damage to be done, however if we wish to recover the _Tsiolkovsky_ then we must restore normal environmental levels."

"We'll keep that in mind," Spartan assured him. "Any ideas on an ETA?"

"We'll be ready to transport you over there in approximately fourteen minutes," Picard said. "Will you be ready by then?"

"Easily sir," Spartan replied. "Do we have a time limit while we're over there?"

"Not that we are aware of," Picard replied, his tone suggesting that they might want to hurry anyway. "Certainly the ship appears to be in a stable orbit still, and there's no external signs of damage. Ideally, if we can determine the ship to be safe, then we would like to beam a caretaker crew over to it so that we can continue observations of the star until a full crew can be brought here."

"We'll keep that in mind sir," Riker replied diplomatically. The meaning was clear there; Riker might have come straight into command rank, but he had done so with a greater military background then his captain. He wasn't any more likely to take risks than Spartan was in a matter like this, despite the somewhat cavalier attitude he sometimes put about. "Let us know when we're in range to transport."

"We will commander. Bridge out."

Riker glanced at Spartan. "Thoughts?"

"Something made those people turn the environmental systems down to the point where they froze," Spartan replied with a shrug. "But if they can't detect any trouble then I'm at a loss."

"Oberth class ships are about eighty years old," Lieutenant Aden offered. "They're being refitted along with everything else, but it's plausible that the _Tsiolkovsky_ is running on older model bio-sensors. I wouldn't put too much faith in them if it's an exotic of some kind."

"Fair enough," Spartan replied. "We go in full hazmat protocol. We can't assume that there isn't going to be trouble here; the Romulan border isn't that far away, and a cloaked ship could fairly easily stay hidden nearby. Rack two weapons loadout, and trust nothing when you get there."

The team, and Riker, nodded and began getting ready.

The hazard team's environmental suits were a cut above anyone else's, as with much of their equipment. Armour plating, designed to diffract phased energy and absorb the incoming fire, covered a large part of it. That covered a layer of poly-crystalline silksteel alloy; weight for weight it was tougher than the ship's hull, though impossible to produce in such quantities as a hull would require. Data from sensors built into the armour were fed through tactical tricorters and displayed on the helmet's HUD. The HUD could show any view that the tricorters and sensors could process between them, including night vision, thermal, electromagnetic and other view modes. The whole thing was controlled from either a vambrace control panel or, for the more skilled user, there was a whole suite of configuration options allowing voice, tongue, or eye based commands.

The weapons loadout was similarly, a cut above the sort of thing that a standard security detail might have access to. Compression rifles and assault rifles were used alongside the usual phasers.

Perhaps the oddest part about their loadout was the non-military aspects. With almost everyone being picked not simply for the military training but for the training that they had in other areas, their individual equipment varied quite dramatically. Lieutenant Aden carried what had once been deemed the most compact toolkit in existence, for the purposes of repair and other engineering work that might be needed. Ensign Sudil carried a complete set of software tools; they were normally kept under the same kind of security as the ship's tricobalt warheads, since they represented almost every known way of bypassing security on the computers aboard a Starfleet vessel. Riker had never envied the Vulcan his use of them; rumour had it that he was subject to a heavily implanted suicide compulsion in the event that he was captured and facing interrogation.

Lieutenant Mannison was the team's medic. Given the layers of armour that they habitually wore on missions like this, she actually had a greater understanding of some aspects of the armour's functionality than almost anyone else. Which, when hazard team members were required to be able to strip and maintain the armour and its systems under shipboard conditions as a minimum, was impressive.

Petty Officer Blake was part of the ship's regular security detail, reporting to lieutenant Yar. His equipment was mostly relating to his regular profession, including a forensic tricorter and other evidence collection gear.

Spartan had the only truly military loadout of them all, being the only 'pure' soldier out of them all. Even then his main job outside the hazard team actually involved maintaining and checking the ship's military equipment and training other members of the crew in military matters ranging from hazard team operations to space combat.

Riker wore the same grade of environmental suit as the rest of the team, but his personal equipment was mostly built into the suit itself; augmented communications and sensors, along with a full bio-monitor readout from every member of the team.

They were ready in plenty of time, and they used that time for Lieutenant Aden to fill them in a bit on the _Tsiolkovsky_.

"Oberth class ships were first put into service just before the treaty with the Klingon empire. They were originally intended for deep space recognisance, doing things like tracking warp fields as well as spotting anomalous readings from things like asteroids that had been hollowed out. After Starfleet decided that the Klingons were serious about the peace and weren't just rearming themselves during the cease fire, the Oberth got retasked as observation ships for things like this; their wide-scale sensors make them good for this kind of mission.

"On the other hand they're mostly being phased out at this point in favour of the Nebula class ships. The ones that aren't being decommissioned are being upgraded, but slowly recently. The _Tsiolkovsky_ is probably one of the oldest; it's now ten years according to the Planatia records that we've got access to since they were back for major overhaul. The next time they go back will probably be within the next two years, when they'll be decommissioned.

"The internal defences aboard an Oberth are limited; the AI routines that we use for handling intruders, based partly on the same kind of intuitive routines that Dr Soong pioneered to create commander Data, weren't introduced until at least thirty years after the _Tsiolkovsky_ was launched. We shouldn't be facing anything like we would if we were boarding the _Enterprise_ or another Galaxy class ship."

"These things were created when the war was still going on, and they didn't think it was necessary to have full rated intruder defences?" Blake asked.

"Any intruder defences that were capable of telling a Klingon boarding party from normal crew would have been likely to be triggered by various other things," Aden explained. "You have to remember that the Klingons had perfected the ECM technology to disguise their bio-signatures by the time the Oberth class ships were developed. Any sensor routines would have been looking for the behaviour rather than species, and they weren't up to it at the time. Even now we get occasional misfires off the things when fights break out."

"So what kind of firepower should we expect the ship to throw at us?" Spartan asked.

"Force fields and suchlike at most," Aden replied with a shrug. "Once we get our presence established as legitimate even those shouldn't be a problem; the computer will do its best to lock us down totally if we get anything wrong, but once it's convinced that we're friendly we'll be in and free." When a couple of members of the team looked sceptical he shrugged. "The ship was meant to be able to rely on crew primarily for defence against boarding like this. Assuming that none of them triggered any of the intruder defences before they went down, we'll be fine."

Riker considered this. "What about bringing the ship up to full readiness? How long will that take?"

"That depends on the damage that they've already done to it," Aden replied. "To reduce the internal temperature that much they must have used command overrides. Until we get there I won't know whether they deleted the systems or simply overrode them."

"Why would they delete the systems?" Blake asked.

"Why would they reduce the temperature to the point where it killed them?" Spartan replied before Aden could. "The situation makes no sense on that front. We'll assume a rational explanation to this, but I get the feeling that it won't be obvious..."

"_Picard to sickbay, Doctor Crusher please respond_."

Crusher looked up from the report that she had been composing on the subject of the progression of certain diseases under shipboard conditions (a less then thrilling subject). She had, more or less, been hoping for a distraction for a while now, and though less than ideal this one would suffice.

She tapped the primary key on her link to accept the call. "I'm here captain. What's the problem?"

"_The Hazard Team are going to be heading over to the Tsiolkovsky in the next couple of minutes. We've so far determined that there are no life signs aboard, which, unfortunately, means no survivors_."

"It also means a lot of dead bodies for autopsy," Crusher agreed, continuing the thought. "Any indication of what killed them?"

"_So far the only indication we have is the cold. No doubt we'll find something more, but I was wondering whether you had any ideas_."

Beverly sat back, thinking about this. She knew Picard, had known him for years now. Her posting on the _Enterprise_ hadn't been random by any stretch of the imagination, with her requesting it from the start and Picard backing it up. A call like this wasn't just to check on the medical situation.

"Without some more information, I can't honestly say," she admitted. "I'll get in touch with lieutenant Mannison and get some feedback from her while she's over there. I can't promise more than that though." She paused, wondering whether she should broach the subject or if Picard would; it was awkward at best to bring the subject up, but if it also involved having other people around it could be doubly so.

After a few seconds Picard broke the silence, his tone suddenly very businesslike. "Thank you Doctor. I'd appreciate hearing when you have a preliminary report from the Hazard Team."

Beverly acknowledged this and signed off briskly, then sat back and considered. She had already picked up the basic report about what was happening; the call for a Hazard Team to deploy immediately flagged up a requirement for the chief medical officer to be aware of what was happening. She had reviewed the initial reports and was happy enough, in the circumstances, to allow the team to go over to the _Tsiolkovsky_. More than that she hadn't promised, and couldn't promise.

She had already done some work on this; the systems that they used for diagnosis had been brought to bear on the problem, the list of symptoms running through the expert system and reporting back a wide variety of possible causes. Too wide if anything. It worried Beverley sometimes just how fragile Humans were when it came to space travel, with everything ranging from the problems that they brought themselves (a replicator malfunction producing alcohol rather than synthohol or an entire crew of five-fifteens) through to things that they might encounter (anything from diseases and plagues through to Romulan Shey'tal agents and the like). And those were the just issues that related to this problem.

She flagged the data from lieutenant Mannison's tricorter and hazard suit as pertinent and, what little she could do having been done, she returned to her work.

Riker wasn't sure what they were going to find when they transported over to the _Tsiolkovsky_. Finding the lighting was still on was a bonus, and his suit's HUD immediately cut back the assorted view mode options to the basic tactical display. Icons indicating further options were shown, but kept out of the way so that they didn't obscure his view.

The targeting feed from his assault rifle was fed directly to a view-in-view window in the lower corner of his HUD. Some people, such as Spartan, preferred to have it at 75% transparency covering the full HUD. Riker preferred to see what was in front of him though.

"Immediate area is clear," Spartan reported as he made a careful sweep. "Commander, taken Blake and Mannison and secure sickbay and the security office; if this was some kind of plague or something the staff should have filed a report of some kind before they went down. Aden, Sudil, we'll check engineering and auxiliary control. Report in at and after each target. Questions?"

Receiving a round of negatives, Spartan nodded to Riker and set off down one corridor, the two combat engineers following him.

Riker paused for a moment, bringing up the hazard team's internal maps of the ship and waypointing the two places that he had been directed to. Route finding software kicked in, plotting the shortest path between the two. After a few seconds to memorise the pertinent bits, Riker flicked the map off to one side of his HUD with an eye-blink (something that he was quietly proud of; some of the regular Hazard Team members never worked out how to use the eye movement based controls for the suits), the suit's guido and intertial compass bringing up an indicator to show him which way to go.

"Security office first," he declared, indicating the relevant corridor. "About two minutes," he added, setting off at a brisk walking pace. He ignored the first turbolift that they reached; standard protocol for Hazard Teams was to use crawl-ways and maintenance shafts wherever possible to avoid the possibility of being trapped. It wasn't a foolproof principle of course, but Klingon and Romulan boarders had been notoriously troubled by the idea of such spaces in the past.

Blake kept pace easily, his attention focused but not rigidly. Riker liked that about Blake; security though he was, and Hazard Team as well, he could relax enough during these operations that you could actually hold a conversation with him. Spartan was sufficiently up-tight and businesslike about such things that it was almost impossible to hold a conversation with him about anything not specifically related to the current mission, while he was on a mission.

Mannison was less cheerful about these missions. The necessity of carrying a gun of any kind while on a mission like this didn't sit well with her Hippocratic Oath, and she tended to be very focused on being careful to avoid any possibility of trouble. It was possible to break her shell open sometimes, Riker had done it before and fully expected to do it again here as there was minimal danger of combat, but beyond this she tended to keep quiet.

"You know what you're looking for?" Riker asked Blake. "Anything we can help with?"

"It depends on what we find," Blake admitted. "I should just be able to get in and access any disturbance reports or scene of crime reports directly. If the captain logged any disciplinary actions because of behaviour before he went down," Blake didn't even seem to be aware of the euphemism as he said it, "then I might need command level authorisation to gain access to them. Otherwise I should be okay."

Riker nodded. This was about what he had expected; his presence here was largely as an extra body and a command level access. His own lack of reaction to Blake's euphemism didn't even register with him; in the early days it had done, before he had worked it out in his own mind how necessary it was as a coping mechanism.

"How's the tournament looking?" Riker continued, swinging his rifle to point down one crosspiece of a junction as Blake covered the other side. They both signalled clear without breaking step and moved on. "I hear that crewman Dale had to pull out."

"Yeah, we're working on replacing him though," Blake replied. "Don't worry commander, we'll give red sector a good showing next week."

Riker grinned and gave a short laugh. "That'll be the day," he declared before blink-clicking his communicator to life. "Riker to Spartan, we've reached the security office."

"_Confirmed commander. We're still at least a minute out from auxiliary control. Keep us posted_."

"Understood, Riker out."

Blake took up position on one side of the door while Riker stood to the other. Mannison kept a watch back down the corridor as Blake gave a countdown and jabbed the door control, opening the way into the office.

The office was a fairly standard design; a main desk on one side, a couple of smaller desks on the other. A large viewscreen on the wall opposite the main desk showed rotating views from the various security cameras across the ship. A couple of doors led off into a secondary office and conference room, while the brig was next to the viewscreen. Effectively being nothing more than a short corridor with cells leading off from it, it would have rarely been used on a ship like this.

The office was cold; Riker couldn't feel it inside the hazard suit, but the external temperature registered at -25°C, and the layer of frost covering almost every surface gave a certain credence to this idea. It even covered the three bodies that were in the office.

Two of them were in standard security uniform; one of them, slumped over the main desk, bore the rank insignia of a lieutenant, and as Riker looked at him a tag appeared next to the link attached to the back of the man's hand: Grayson, Lieutenant, Matthew, chief of security. The other was a regular security officer; he had lost his link at some point so Riker wasn't immediately sure of who he was. He might have lost it when he put on the gloves that he was wearing Riker guessed, though that was a bit more careless than you would have expected.

The third was a crewman from engineering. It was hard to tell from the poses, but it looked like there might have been a struggle. "Blake?"

"All three are dead," Blake announced. "Hard to say how or why right away..." He took a few steps around the office, looking over the tableau. "I think that someone had decided that it wasn't safe to keep prisoners here sir. They were removing this guy from the brig, and they were having to drag him." He considered the seated figure. "The chief was already gone by then. At this kind of temperatures you don't get much in the way of hypothermia, you just stop working. The fact that they were still trying to remove prisoners..."

"Environmental controls must have been reset centrally," Riker declared. "They didn't have any way of controlling it here, but they must have decided that there was some way to protect the prisoners."

"But they were doing that..." Blake paused. "The chief was dead after this pair," he decided. "I'd guess that they collapsed and he went to call for help."

"They were all perspiring somewhat," Mannison offered as she stood from where she had been examining the pair on the floor. "Despite the cold. This one," she indicated the crewman, "was sweating quite a lot."

"So we can add fluid loss to the list of causes of death," Blake said uncertainly.

"Not that heavily," Mannison disagreed. "Though they were definitely sweating quite a lot. The cooling effect from that much sweat, combined with what would amount to dehydration, heat exhaustion and hypothermia all at the same time..." She shook her head, the motion barely shown by the hazard suit's helmet. "The prisoner appears to have been sweating more than the other two," she observed. "Possible virus or plague with a fluid based vector. I'll know more once we get to sickbay and check the records there."

"Understood," Riker said with a nod. "Blake, get what you need." Riker blink-clicked his communicator back on. "Riker to Spartan, what's your situation chief?"

"_We're inside auxiliary control_," Spartan replied calmly. "_A couple of bodies. It looks like someone was trying to override the life support controls from here, but they'd been locked out. We may need command level authorisation to get them back to a sensible level_."

"Chief, we've got signs of a possible fluid based disease or virus," Riker announced. "Primary symptom so far appears to be heavy sweat, regardless of the cold."

There was a pause from the other end of the line, then Spartan came back. "_Confirm that. The crewman trying to reset the systems was barely sweating; he's got a couple of extra layers on. The other... She's armed with a phaser set on kill. Impact damage across the walls suggests that she was firing a bit uncertainly before she died. She was sweating as well._"

"Women don't sweat John," Mannison objected, cutting across the channel.

"_No offence meant lieutenant_," Spartan replied from the other end of the channel, "_but any woman who shoots a guy in the back like this for trying to save his own life was damned well sweating_."

"Anything else to report Chief?" Riker asked before the discourse could continue.

"_One interesting point sir_," Aden declared. "_I've pulled up the life support logs and it looks like this happened quite quickly; the temperature started being reduced about thirty six hours ago. It was minimal to begin with, and being done by individuals, but then someone kicked in the main controls. From there the temperature seems to have gone down in increasingly large and rapid steps until everyone just started dropping from it_."

"If the first symptom of the disease is sweating then people might have decided that they were overheating without realising it was something more," Mannison offered. "Infection rating through a ship like this would have been limited by physical contact-"

"_Actually_," Aden cut in again, "_if we're talking about the carrier being body fluid then we could be looking at something more rapid; the filters on the water systems in these older ships weren't as good as ours. They're fine for conventional stuff or the ship would never have left drydock, but if we're talking about something exotic then it could have spread fairly rapidly through the ship's water system. Exponential infection after that_."

"I'll pass all of this over to Doctor Crusher," Mannison said after a moment's consideration. "With a bit of luck we'll have seen something like this before."

"I can confirm the rough timing of this," Blake broke in. "Reports of slovenly behaviour, people acting oddly... All starting about six hours before the temperature changes began. They were filing reports up till about four hours ago, then there's just a busy flag on the logs after that."

"Meaning?"

"Everyone was too busy to deal with them," Blake replied with a shrug. "There's a note here about a possible bio-hazard, but sickbay seems to have been a major source of trouble..." He glanced over at the dead security officer on the floor. "Apparently they were issuing gloves as a limited form of protection. That's the last thing that they reported."

"Copy what you need and jump a copy over to the _Enterprise_," Riker ordered. "We'll move on to sickbay now. Chief, did you get all of that?"

"_Confirmed_," Spartan replied. "_We'll move onto engineering and see what we can come up with there_."

Spartan led them swiftly into engineering, finding it in a similar state to what they had already seen in the rest of the ship; bodies that were frozen in place where they died. The major difference here was the hotter components which couldn't be cooled sufficiently for the frost to form. It was hard to tell what was winning in those cases though; the life support systems were working overtime to try and reduce the temperature, a minor howl building up in the ventilation.

"See what you can do about normalising the temperature," Spartan ordered. "I don't like the way that this ship is wasting power here."

"Aye sir," Aden said with a nod.

"Sudil, see what you can do about getting us backdoor access to the systems. I don't like the fact that the intruder defences haven't spotted us yet, and I don't want them going off unexpectedly."

For a moment the Vulcan didn't seem to hear the order, simply looking up at the warp core. Then he turned, nodding, and headed for a console.

Spartan considered this for a moment, then walked slowly after him. "Ensign? Is something wrong?"

"Nothing that I can define sir," Sudil replied, unpacking the portable computer that held his software tools.

"If there's something that we need to know about," Spartan began.

"We're being watched sir," Sudil announced with the same Vulcan calm that he always used.

Spartan frowned, his combat senses kicking into full gear. He hadn't been aware of anything, though on a ship like this...

"It's nothing in this room," Sudil announced. "Not even on this ship. But there is something watching us. And I have no idea what it is."

Considering this, Spartan thought carefully. On a ship filled with dead bodies he might have guessed that most people were just jittery. Sudil though... "A cloaked Romulan ship? A Shey'tal attack might explain the behaviour."

"It isn't Romulans," Sudil announced calmly, the flat denial leaving no room for argument. "Something slower. I can't tell anything more. Perhaps commissar Troi can assist you further."

Clearly the Vulcan wasn't happy talking about something this vague or uncertain. It was a common problem with Vulcans in Spartan's experience, though one that he rarely ran up against like this; they referred solid facts or carefully delineated areas of uncertainty to work with.

Nodding an acceptance, or a temporary truce at least, Spartan stepped back to allow Sudil to work. Having done so he blink-clicked his communicator on. "Chief Petty Officer Spartan to commissar Troi, USS _Enterprise_ alpha relay. Requesting your advice and assistance."

There was silence for a moment before Troi responded, having apparently found a place where she could speak privately. "_Is there a problem Chief_?"

"There may be commissar," he admitted. "Ensign Sudil has indicated to me that he is aware of someone watching us. Someone not on this ship. He also indicated that it isn't Shey'tal."

"_What about the Golden Sabre_?" Troi asked.

"He dismissed the idea of it being anything that he's familiar with fairly quickly," Spartan replied. "Somehow I don't think it's going to be Klingons."

There was silence from the other end of the channel for a few seconds. "_Has he indicated anything else about it_?"

"He said it was something 'slower', whatever that means. Does it mean anything to you?"

"_Not immediately_," Troi replied. "_Given the way that different telepaths handle outside stimuli and signals it could be that he's simply using non-standard symbology to explain himself. I can have a word with him if you'd like_."

"He's working right now," Spartan pointed out. "I'd rather he made sure the intruder defence won't be turning on us in the near future before he started worrying about other things."

"_Understood_," Troi replied. She hesitated, then sighed. "_Chief, I know that you don't exactly like the idea of the telepath guild, but I would recommend that you take Sudil seriously on this. If he reports anything more definite then let me know immediately_."

"I'll do that commissar," Spartan replied, privately wondering what this was about as he signed off.

Riker had hung around in sickbay for a while before starting to get bored. It was unprofessional, and no doubt someone would comment that getting bored while surrounded by that many dead bodies shouldn't have been possible. But he was bored, and since they were working in threes he had no option for moving off elsewhere.

Mannison had been reading through the various logs, and had roughly concluded that things had begun about forty eight hours earlier. Medical reports had begun to come in at about the same time that the security ones had, with slovenly behaviour being linked to possible medical cases due to the extreme sweating. Nothing had been proven by the time the logs stopped being recorded as the medical personnel were affected.

The research that they had been doing was taking some time for Mannison to work through, and she had brought Doctor Crusher in on it to see if they could come up with something with more direct access to the medical database. So far, from what Riker had heard when he tapped into their channel, they hadn't had much luck.

Eventually, Riker had pulled up the logs for command personnel and started to work through those. Personal logs he couldn't touch; he would need Picard or Deanna to help him get those open. The official logs of the command crew he was able to get into easily enough though. What they said wasn't entirely helpful though; mostly it was a growing list of complaints about incompetence and behaviour, which became steadily more erratic as those making them fell to whatever this disease was.

"Commander Riker to Captain Picard, USS _Enterprise_ Alpha Relay. Wishing to make situation report."

There was a delay of nearly thirty seconds before Picard came onto the channel. "_Go ahead commander_." Riker's HUD changed to show a view of Picard sitting at his desk in his ready room. He knew from experience that Picard would be seeing his face, lit by the helmet's internal lights, with local sensor data around it.

"Sir, we've got evidence of a disease or virus that is carried by body fluid. So far as we can tell it drove the ship's crew to wipe themselves out by inducing a drunken state. The last I heard from the medical team was that they were unable to isolate the contagion directly; there's something that they've found which might be it, but you'd need to ask them for specifics."

"_Understood. I'd like to bring Doctor Crusher and CPO Spartan into this discussion_."

"Agreed sir," Riker replied, blink-clicking the communications window off to the side so that it wasn't getting in the way anymore. He waited for a moment as Picard did the necessary work to get everyone involved, and then blink-clicked the channel back into view when he heard the second bleep announcing that someone had joined.

The view was now split with Picard in the top left, Spartan in the bottom left and Doctor Crusher in the top right. The bottom right quadrant was taken up by status information indicating the other people who were merely listening on the channel rather than actively taking part. For a start that included the rest of the Hazard Team. Deanna, Riker noted, had also joined.

"_Doctor Crusher, do you have any indication of what happened to the Tsiolkovsky_?" Picard began. "_I've been informed that this is a disease or plague, but I'm not sure about the specifics_."

"_We've been unable to locate any indication of where this came from so far_," Crusher admitted. "_The Tsiolkovsky wasn't equipped to handle research into diseases or plagues. There's no reason for them to have something like this on board_."

"_Could it be something that they picked up elsewhere_?" Spartan asked. "_Something that they didn't notice until now_."

"_Unlikely_," Mannison answered. "_The ship's been here for months already without outside contact, and this thing wiped out the crew in less than three days. Anything that could move that fast should have got to them before they even left dock_."

"_What about a hive virus_?" Aden asked.

"_There's never been a positively recorded case of a hive virus existing_," Crusher replied. "_Every case has always been traced back, with reasonable certainty, to experimentation and poor quarantine protocols_."

"_I'm just saying_," Aden said defensively. "_If there ever was a case for one existing, this is it_."

"_There is another actually_," Crusher admitted. "_About ninety years ago the Enterprise NCC-1701 encountered something similar to this on the planet Psi 2000. A research outpost had been struck down by something very similar to this. It effectively removed people's inhibitions, eventually driving some to suicide while the rest died when the life support systems were switched off_."

"_How did Captain Spock deal with that_?" Blake asked.

"_Uh, this was early in the Enterprise career_," Crusher replied. "_It was still commanded by Captain Kirk. This was nearly a year before the incident at Organia_."

"_Consider the question suitably modified_," Picard instructed, his nervousness about being reminded of his most infamous predecessor clear.

"_The Enterprise was infected by the virus when it managed to get past their decontamination protocols_," Crusher continued. "_Most of the crew was infected, but their ship's doctor managed to avoid being infected for long enough to develop a cure. They lost nearly fifty people in the end_."

"_Will the bio-filters handle this stuff on the way back from this ship_?" Spartan asked, voicing a question that had occurred to every member of the Hazard Team. If the answer was no then they would be stuck here for the foreseeable future.

"_We've isolated what appears to be the virus_," Mannison announced. "_The bio-filters can handle that once we program them to treat it as hazardous. The problem is that... Well, the damned stuff is nearly inert. It seems to work slowly and doesn't directly affect anything that I can see. The medical reports all confirm that this was the carrier for whatever this is, but in itself it can't do any of the things that we've seen so far_."

"So it isn't actually the source of the trouble?" Riker asked, concerned by this.

"_Oh, it's the trouble alright_," Mannison assured him. "_They were able to track its presence across all of the infected, and there were no other commonalities located. But... There's no way that it could have done the things that we've seen it has done_."

Picard hmmed a bit, keeping everyone quiet as he considered, before making his decision. "_Doctor, I want you to go over what we have about this and the other incident. Make sure the bio-filters can handle whatever this is. If necessary we'll use invoke the Folen protocol to get everyone back_."

"_That shouldn't be necessary_," Crusher assured him. "_I'll let you know when I'm satisfied with the filters_."

"_Understood. Unless there's anything else_?"

"Nothing at this time captain," Riker replied after allowing the Hazard Team a few seconds to speak up. "We'll see you when we get back aboard."

It took three hours in the end, with Crusher, La Forge and O'Brien all working together. Building up a parameters list for the virus, ensuring that it was both wide enough to catch minor variants and mutations but narrow enough not to take out parts of the DNA of the people being transported. More than one transporter chief had been heard to comment that it was a good thing that space wasn't as heavily populated as old science fiction had depicted it to be sometimes, because they would never have been able to handle all of the possibilities safely.

Riker waited patiently while they worked. There was nothing to be gained by hurrying them, and a lot to lose if they didn't wait.

Eventually O'Brien signalled that he was ready and the Hazard Team assembled.

"_In the event that the filters aren't working I won't be able to do complicated things like beaming you back and forth_," O'Brien warned them. "_If I have to use the Folen protocol then you won't know about it until you get back here_."

"Thanks for the warning anyway," Riker replied. "Everyone set?"

Receiving a round of nods, Riker addressed O'Brien again. "We're ready chief. Energise."

There was a two second pause as O'Brien set to work, then the world dissolved into sparkles and the transporter beam.

Riker hadn't been looking forward to this part. Normally the journey in the transporter would take a matter of seconds, and you didn't really have a chance to focus on it. With a decontamination cycle though, you were inside the transporter beam for anything up to fifty seconds sometimes. That was all you were assured that it was anyway. It was hard to tell though, with some part of you still aware of the passage of time but unable to measure it. And though you were without conventional senses there was some sense that remained... Something vivid and powerful enough that you could almost assure yourself that it was real, despite what everyone else said to the contrary.

Riker had kept quiet about what he saw there. Everyone did in the end. Sometimes someone felt it necessary to share what they had seen, but never with strangers. Riker had caught a couple of the common stories in his time: heaven or hell, darkness or light. Someone had heard music, like some kind of choir in the distance.

To Riker the journey always carried a sense of being in darkness. But there was a sense with it that he wasn't alone in the darkness. There was nothing he could hear or see or touch; the very absence of those senses was part of how he would have to describe it. Sometimes it was a feeling of something being a long way away. Sometimes he came out of the transporter beam fighting to urge to look back over his shoulder at what he knew had to be standing there.

This time it wasn't right behind him. It was close though, damned close, maybe just the other side of a room. Time was impossible to guess here. He might only have been there a few seconds, or maybe hours. All he knew was that there was something here with him, something that he couldn't see or hear or move away from and it knew he was here and was moving closer-

The transporter beam shimmered around Riker as he reappeared on the Enterprise transporter pad. He wasn't breathing hard, and his pulse wasn't racing, and he wasn't sweating, but that was all because his body hadn't been there to breathe or sweat and he hadn't had a heart to race. The purely mental panic that was left over from being in the transporter hit his body at the same time that the calm of his body hit his mind and for a second the reaction caused his breath to catch, coming out as something like a sob.

Around him the rest of the team were recovering from their personal ordeals at the same time. O'Brien studiously ignored them for a few seconds, busying himself with the readings on the console and then looking up. "All clear commander."

"Any trouble chief?" Riker asked, recovering himself as quickly as he could.

"None sir. The transporter's filters burnt a load of it off your suits, but nothing more than that. There were no signs of it being inside the suits."

"Nothing that we need to worry about then," Spartan remarked, stepping off the platform.

Blink-clicking the suit's communicator on, Riker notified the captain that they were back safely.

"_Understood commander. How urgent do you think the situation there is_?"

"We need to get the ship back online, but we don't believe that there's a problem at the moment," Riker replied. "We can send over a caretaker crew to bring things online. I'd recommend a medical team as well in order to sort through the bodies."

"_Understood. I'll have the department heads make the arrangements. File the reports for this and then head off duty; we'll see how things are when we reconvene tomorrow_."

"Aye sir, Riker out."

"I pity the ones that pull the duty tidying those bodies up," Mannison said with feeling. "The first thing the caretaker crew is going to want to do is bring the temperature back up again."

Riker didn't comment on that one; deciding who got priority in such a situation would be awkward at best, with the science and engineering teams needing to work as quickly as possible to make up for lost time, but the medical teams needing to not only tidy up the bodies but decontaminate the ship before the temperature could be raised to the point where people could work without environmental suits.

He left the Hazard Team discussing the matter and headed for his office so that he could file the report. He kept it short in the end, knowing that the Hazard Team's own notes would be more pertinent than his own views on the situation and merely flagging the report to have the other team member's reports attached to it when they were produced.

This duty out of the way, Riker checked off the few other items awaiting his attention (primarily a couple of pieces relating to late reports) before heading for Ten Forward.

Deanna was already there when he arrived. She was still in uniform, and reading from a padd as she sipped from her drink occasionally.

"Commissar," Riker said formally as he came up to the table.

"Commander," Deanna replied with equal formality before smiling and gesturing to the seat opposite her. "Have a seat. How was it over there?"

"About how you'd expect," Riker admitted, somewhat grimly. "Damned spooky with all of those bodies around. No major problems though."

"What about the ship? Do you think we can recover it?"

"Aden didn't seem to think that-" Riker broke off as one of the staff passed the table. "I'd like a Gideon's Fall," he announced.

"Certainly commander," the waiter replied before moving on.

"You're still drinking that stuff?" Deanna asked with a frown. "I thought you gave it up."

"I save it for special occasions," Riker replied with a smile. Then the smile faltered. "Or emergencies."

"Does this count as one?"

"It could do," Riker admitted. "We've no idea where that virus came from, it apparently doesn't make any sense medically..." He shrugged. "I'll be glad when someone provides me with an explanation of what happened there."

"We might be waiting a while for that," Deanna admitted. "With all of the science teams devoted to getting the _Tsiolkovsky_ back up and running, we might be a while before we find out anything more about it."

"How are the rest of the crew taking it? I don't like the idea that I might be the only one who is uncomfortable with the situation," Riker admitted.

"You're not," Deanna replied. "I've had reports of various kinds of disquiet about the whole situation.

John Spartan had filed his report almost before Riker had. He'd been about to do so when the commander's file came up as flagged and he merely had to attach his own report to it.

The report had been sparse; there was no military action involved in the mission and the security side of it didn't concern him too much. That random members of the crew had apparently had access to phasers was a matter of concern of course, but he'd found that the ship's armoury had been left open, the controls jammed.

He didn't go off duty directly, as such. He ran checks against all of the weapons that they had taken with them on the mission, ensuring that they had been logged in properly and that the power packs showed no signs of having been tampered with or used. He then found his way not to Ten Forward, but to his quarters where he picked up his gym kit.

The ship's gym was minimally stocked, but effectively so. Multipurpose equipment and the like could be deployed from the walls or floors. The place was well used by most of the crew; reluctantly in some cases, but anyone wishing to pass regular fitness examinations didn't have much choice about keeping in shape.

For now he had the place almost to himself. He got a drink from the gym's replicator, and then settled on one of the weight lifting machines to begin with, swiping himself into it and starting work. The machine kicked in, clunking a bit as it shifted the weights around to accommodate his default settings and double the starting weight from whoever had been using it previously.

That still wasn't a lot as far as he was concerned; it was a good place to start, but not much more. He didn't even sweat as he worked through the initial set of weights before knocking it up further so that he could actually get started properly.

By the time he was bench pressing close to half a ton he was starting to strain. The weight by this time wasn't easy to work with, but keeping in shape was part of the deal when they upgraded him. That and remaining loyal to the Federation come what may.

He broke off after a while so that he could relax a bit, and stretched, having a drink at the same time. A couple of people had come and gone while he had been there, and he had attracted the usual collection of odd looks for the weights that he was working with. He ignored those now; originally he had been a bit put out by them, but after twenty years he had become accustomed to them.

He frowned as he swallowed. An enhanced sense of taste wasn't something that they had felt it necessary to give him, but despite that he had found that he did have a more accurate or quantitative sense of taste than most people. He'd asked the replicator for water. What that actually produced was a vaguely alchemical mix involving assorted chemicals to go with the water in order to make it "everything the body needs". He'd objected to that briefly, until he had found out the kind of things that people had drunk as 'water' before replicators. Then he'd been glad for the definite knowledge that what he was drinking had been at least intended to keep him healthy rather than just being what couldn't be cleaned out.

The one disadvantage of this of course was that it was a bit samey after a while; as with anything the replicators produced it was built from a template. Sometimes there were variant templates available, but for the most part what you got one time would be what you got the next time, right down to the size and position of the onions that were sprinkled onto a burger.

This water though, tasted different from the usual glasses that he had. He couldn't put his finger on it, but there was something... It was slight. Just a hint of something he didn't recognise that shouldn't have been there. It wasn't poisonous, he was reasonably sure of that much. But what it actually was...

He shrugged. It wouldn't be the first time that someone had tweaked the contents of the replicator's templates because of some health related issue. Perhaps someone had decided that just a hint of some kind of chemical would be useful to keep everyone's physiology in balance.

Then the alarm went off.

Riker and Deanna had been chatting for a while, when Deanna looked around, focusing on one of the windows looking out into space. Currently they were all heavily tinted, almost black, showing only a small part of the glare from the sun that they were orbiting. They were probably at maximum already, Riker realised. The next step would be bringing the ship's additional armour plating online, blocking the light and radiation completely.

Deanna wasn't looking out of the window though, Will realised. She was focused instead on the person standing in front of it.

"What's wrong?" he asked, frowning.

"I don't know. But... I don't see preoccupied Vulcans normally. Pensive, yes, but not really one this nervous." She stood, walking over to the crewman, and Riker, recognising that Deanna wouldn't break off a conversation just for kicks, went with her.

"Ensign? Ensign Sudil?" Deanna spoke gently, and Riker was almost confused by that for a moment; you didn't normally need to speak to a Vulcan as if they were a vicious dog that might turn on you.

"Commissar," Sudil responded without looking around.

"Is something wrong?"

"We're being watched," Sudil replied, still seeming distracted. "We were being watched when we were on the _Tsiolkovsky_, but it hadn't seen us when we came back here. But now it's found the _Enterprise_ as well. And we're not welcome here."

Deanna shot a look at Riker, the thought-shape she sent to him being detectable to the additional training that he had received. She felt this was important. Something that needed to be acted on. He couldn't see why it was important, or what it was about, let alone what Deanna wanted him to do about it...

Stepping back a few steps, aware that Sudil would be able to hear him clearly even if he was right across Ten Forward, Riker tapped at his commlink. "Commander Riker to Captain Picard, request urgent contact."

There was a delay of only a second or two before Picard came on. "_What is it Number One_?"

"_We're just had a report that the ship is being... Watched. Commisar Troi thinks that this report is something that we should take seriously_."

There was a pause from the other end of the channel, and Riker could almost see Picard thinking the problem over. "_Do we have any recommendations_?"

Riker glanced at Deanna, who shrugged. That, Riker felt, was less than helpful. Particularly since he needed to translate it into something that he could tell the captain. "We're not sure at this time," he admitted carefully. "Whatever is watching us is... Vague." Deanna made an impatient gesture. "I recommend that we pull away from the _Tsiolkovsky_ for a start; apparently we've only been noticed since after the Hazard Team returned, but the _Tsiolkovsky_ has been under observation for the entire time we've been here."

"_Understood. We'll increase our displacement from it by half a million kilometres. Notify me of any changes in the situation_."

"Aye sir. Riker out." Taking a breath, Riker moved back over to Sudil and Deanna. "We need more information," he said, gently, but keeping a forceful tone.

"It's too late," Sudil announced, his tone not exactly concerned by the news he was delivering.

Then the alarm went off.

Data was still at the operations station when Picard came out of his ready room. "Helm, alter our course to increase the distance between ourselves and the _Tsiolkovsky_ by half a million kilometres."

Data spun his seat around, looking confused. "Sir, that will greatly decrease the rate at which we can interface with the _Tsiolkovsky_'s systems."

"Hopefully we can move back soon enough," Picard replied. "For now, we may have other things to worry about."

Then the alarm went off.

"Warning. Bio-hazard detected in ship's gymnasium. Lockdown in progress."

Spartan looked around as the computer make this announcement, somewhat startled. Bio-hazard drills normally had things starting from sensible places like the science lab or a transporter room or Ten Forward. The ship's gym wasn't exactly a normal place to find such things.

"Computer," Spartan called over the three tone alarm and the computer repeating its warning. "This is chief petty officer John Spartan. Clarify the nature of the bio-hazard detected."

For a moment at least the alarm cut off. "Bio-hazard detected has been classified as AND-1137-ED2B6. Bio-hazard was classified one hour ago as Psi 2000/ Tsiolkovsky Variant."

"What's that meant to mean?" one of the crewmen who had been using the gym asked.

"It's the thing that was over on the _Tsiolkovsky_," Spartan explained absently. "I just got back from there."

"So what? You brought it back with you?"

Spartan looked at the crewman steadily. "We were in hazard team environmental suits the entire time and we weren't allowed back over here until the bio-filter on the transporter was calibrated properly. The same sensors that just set off that alarm were the ones that cleared us as being safe in the first place." He looked around at the gym's doors; the control panels next to both of them were dead and the lights around the doors were yellow and black stripes rather than the synthetic-sunlight of their normal colour. "Lockdown protocol works at least."

"So what? We're trapped in here? With a bio-hazard of some kind?"

"Until a medical team gets to us and clears us, yes," Spartan announced. Tapping at his commlink, Spartan put a call through. "CPO Spartan to sickbay. I'm inside the gymnasium, requesting contact so as to ascertain our next course of action."

He had to wait nearly a minute in the end before getting the call answered. "_This is Doctor Crusher. Chief, do you have any idea of where this outbreak came from_?"

"Not a clue. Chief O'Brien cleared us as being free of contamination when we came back. I would have thought that the sensors would have picked something up sooner if we were carrying something."

"_They should have_," Crusher announced. "_The sensors run a concentrated sweep for twenty minutes after you come back from something like this. They didn't pick anything up in that time. According to the report I've been given it was one of the routine sweeps that the sensors run which managed to catch this_."

"So what? Something wasn't here at all, and then suddenly it was?"

"_Either that or it was some mutant variant that we couldn't scan for before which has mutated back into range_," Doctor Crusher pointed out. "_I'm sending a medical team down to you. Stay where you are, we'll keep you apprised of how things are going_."

"Understood. Spartan out."

"So we're just staying here?" one of the other crewmen asked.

"Sure. Whatever this stuff was it took a good couple of days to wipe out the crew of the _Tsiolkovsky_. We've got all of their notes, plus better facilities, a bigger research team, and earlier warning. For myself, I'm going back to the weights."

Data worked his way through the ship's bio-sensor protocols as quickly as he could. Normally the ship was scanned every hour. In practise a processor intensive scan like that would take nearly an hour to go over the entire ship, and as such it had a processor stack devoted almost solely to the task.

By bringing additional stacks online, they could increase the rate of the scan. By reducing the focus to a known problem, the rate could be increased even further. Both of these cut into the ship's usual efficiency, either by reducing the rate at which other parts of the ship's functions could operate, or by reducing the scope for catching other problems that turned up. Both were therefore calculated risks.

The holodecks were usually the first thing to be shut down in a situation like this; they were 99% recreational use anyway, which didn't help in an emergency like this, and they each used more processing power than the warp drive did. By monotasking them to search for the specific contagion it was possible to scan the entire ship every three minutes and seventeen seconds. For a millisecond Data considered pushing it further, then decided against it. A single outbreak merited increased vigilance, but not a carpet bombing approach.

Additionally, Data was still managing the sensor records from the _Tsiolkovsky_. A single, non-immediate crisis couldn't be allowed to interfere with the long-term research that was going on here. The slowly increasing distance was introducing an element of lag to the flow of information, though this wasn't a problem overall. The same amount of information was getting through, and Data handled it and his additional duties by simply diverting some of the information flow onto the science teams that were waiting for it. He still skim-read most of it, but aside from some very basic pattern recognition routines he didn't have the personal processing power to divert to giving it the attention that he would have preferred.

Part of the reason for that was that he had designated a couple of his sub-processors to consider how the contagion could have come to be aboard. Assuming that Chief O'Brien could be trusted to run a transporter properly (Data personally had no issues with this, having seen the combat engineer disassemble, clean out and reassemble one under combat conditions during previous missions) and that the bio-filters were working correctly (they had correctly identified and removed the contagion already, and this had been verified by tricorter afterwards), there were very few options available.

In the background he was aware that Picard was co-ordinating some efforts to contain the outbreak as it stood. Lieutenant Yar was leading a security detail down to the gym, while lieutenant Mannison was leading a medical team in hazmat suits. The lockdown was holding (Data hadn't doubted that it would when CPO Spartan was one of the people trapped by it) and everything so far indicated that, barring the unusual appearance of the contagion in the gym in the first place, everything was running as smoothly as it could be expected to.

Data had counted fifteen minutes and thirty two seconds since the bio-hazard alarm had gone off when the sensors bleeped urgently at him and a second alarm went off.

"Warning. Bio-hazard detected in Ten Forward. Lockdown in progress."

"Data?"

"Sensors have detected another occurrence of the contagion in Ten Forward. The previous scan of that area was less than four minutes ago, when there was no indication of any issues there. The area around Ten Forward was scanned and clear of infection as well. I am unable to explain where this came from."

"Co-ordinate sickbay and security to lock down the area. Who do we have in there?"

"Commander Riker and Commissar Troi are both in Ten Forward," Data announced after a quick check.

"Understood," Picard replied.

Over the next hour, the sensors triggered five more alarms as new instances of the Tsiolkovsky virus sprang up. In each case the ship's lockdown protocols worked perfectly, ensuring that no one was able to move from one area to another.

After the third of those the captain had issued a general lockdown order: anyone not in a sealed environmental suit would not be permitted to move around. In view of the way that this was springing up it was hard to say how effective this was going to be; though the first three detections had been in areas where Hazard Team members were present, the other detections had all been in areas where the Hazard Team not only hadn't been, but no one who had been in contact with them had been.

Generally the crew were taking things well; the whole thing having kicked off in the middle of a shift, no one had yet been caught in a place that they couldn't reasonably spend a while longer if necessary. The few who weren't were generally those trapped in areas of the ship that were infected and even they, knowing the head start that the medical teams had and the length of time before any symptoms would be likely to set in, were mostly just getting overexcited rather than actually causing trouble.

The first _real_ problem of the infection, occurred eighty seven minutes after the first alarm had gone off.

Tasha Yar was far from comfortable with her current duty.

It wasn't the environmental suit; she was fully rated to use those, and compared to some places that she had slept while she had been growing up they were actually quite comfortable. She had trained for the duty of keeping the peace, so there was no issue with that. Detaining a group of people in a gymnasium wasn't an issue either; they were better off than some others at present, with toilets, showers and a replicator they were better off than most of the crew.

"How are things?" she asked the two security officers that she had left guarding the gym.

"Still quiet," one of them replied. He didn't look comfortable with the way things were, though Tasha knew that was more because of his aversion to environmental suits more than anything else.

"No signs of trouble from them?"

"None so far."

"Do you expect trouble lieutenant?" asked the other officer. His environmental suit was a different design from that of most other people on the ship; it had to be when he was a Gorn. Green scales and a reptilian head looked out from the visor. The claws that the suit came equipped with had startled a few people; even Tasha had been worried by them until she found out about the Gorn's tradition of declawing criminals.

"I'm hoping that we won't have any," she admitted. "But we've got a steadily growing-" She broke off as another alarm about a bio-hazard was announced. They had cut back the alarms when the general lockdown order went out, ensuring that they were only audible to the command crew and the people immediately affected by the alarm. With internal communications secured as well, there was less chance of people finding out just how far this was spreading. Panic, at this stage, needed to be avoided.

"Not another one," the Human officer said sourly. "Don't we even know how this is spreading yet?"

"Not a clue," Tasha admitted. "They've confirmed that it isn't airborne, so as far as anyone can tell it's just popping into existence."

"How can that-" The Gorn officer's query was cut short as a cry went up from the gym behind him. Tasha rushed the door, slapping at the activation control to open it. For most people that wouldn't have worked; a sealed environmental suit, particularly one with a security officer inside it, could bypass that easily enough.

A fight had broken out at the far end of the gym. For a moment Tasha was confused as to what was going on there; two of the medical staff appeared to be trying to attack Spartan, an exercise in futility if ever there was one.

Then the scene fell into focus and she realised what was actually happening: Spartan was attacking the medics.

Tasha didn't bother trying to close with him; Spartan threw Gorn around like ragdolls during some of the combat training sessions that he ran, and he would throw her around even more easily. That was why they had phasers though.

Tasha pulled hers out even as Spartan threw one of the medics bodily across the gym. She didn't bother aiming too precisely, simply thumbing it to a wide angle beam on heavy stun and firing.

The result wasn't as great as she had hoped, but also wasn't as bad as she had feared. Spartan staggered, seeming woozy from the hit, but gathered himself and charged her, coming close to bellowing as he ran.

He was fast. A damned sight faster than he had ever seemed during training sessions that Tasha had gone through. She didn't have time to adjust her aim or the setting on the phaser; she simply had time to fire again, the beam striking him full in the chest and throwing him off his step. He staggered properly this time, his skin glowing as the webbing layer built into it sought to disperse the incoming energy and protect his nervous system.

She kept firing as he staggered towards her; the phaser was obviously having an effect, but a lot less of one than she wanted. There was a sense about him coming at her of an unstoppable force, as if nothing short of a collision with a continent was going to actually slow him down properly.

She didn't get a continent.

A Gorn security officer trained in Starfleet Security's unarmed combat styles with extra emphasis on grappling, restraining, and incapacitating delivering a sharp blow to the temple had to suffice.

Tasha stopped firing as Spartan collapsed. She felt the rest of the room swim back into focus, becoming aware as it did of how hard she was breathing and how her pulse was pounding. Facing down something like that had been exactly what she had been hoping to avoid. It didn't help her that now that she looked again Spartan had genuinely collapsed as close to her as she had thought. A few steps more from him...

"How was he doing that?" someone asked.

"You've never seen a class four augment in combat before?" Tasha enquired, her voice a bit weak and shaky. Even she hadn't done so, properly. Spartan was trained in all sorts of martial arts; there was no reason for him to simply attack by brute force, and certainly none for him to have attacked in such a manner as that. It had almost been... Animal.

"I've gone up against simulated Klingons in the holodeck," someone admitted. "But this..."

"What exactly happened?" Tasha asked.

"He was complaining about being hot," one of the medics informed her while another helped their colleague up off the floor. "We were trying to take a blood sample for analysis and... He just went nuts."

Tasha looked down at the unconscious chief petty officer and sighed. "Keep him unconscious and restrained for now. Make sure Doctor Crusher hears about this. I'll inform the captain."

"_I've completed my initial analysis of the disease_," Doctor Crusher reported. "_So far we've definitely got whatever hit the Tsiolkovsky. But now it makes no sense not simply in terms of how it's getting here, but how it works as well_."

Picard frowned at the screen on his desk. "How so?"

"_The disease works in Humans by forming alcohol like structures within the brain. That's an issue, but one that we could have dealt with in the short term at least. The problem is that we've got two Gorn who are already infected, and they're showing similar symptoms to everyone else who is infected_."

"Why is that a problem? Would you expect them to behave differently?"

"_Jean-luc, Gorn are fatally allergic to alcohol. If it was forming the same stuff in their brains that it was in Human brains they would be dead by now. But they still have the same symptoms as everyone else, and when we checked we found traces of semketalif; Gorn can get drunk off it in the same way that Humans get drunk on alcohol. I've also got a Vulcan who is infected and showing signs of being drunk; alcohol doesn't affect them at all, and we've got traces of aellphirate versinom in him, and that does produce similar effects in Vulcans_."

"What are you saying Doctor?"

"_I'm saying that we have a disease which doesn't seem capable of doing anything, which can't be on this ship because of the measures we took to ensure that it wasn't, which is appearing in places that it can't have been carried to, and which appears to create symptoms in anyone it infects rather than creating an actual condition_." She sighed. "_So far we've got a couple of impossibilities there. A few more and we'll be in for a tea party at this rate_."

Picard smiled at the reference. "Are you any closer to finding a cure?"

"_Unfortunately, no. We tried the one that was developed to fight the disease on Psi 2000, but it didn't work; this is a new strain of some kind. We're working on a new cure at the moment, but_..." She paused, leaving a heavy silence. "_We don't have as long as we thought we did_."

"We don't?"

"_CPO Spartan was infected less than two hours before he went berserk. So far in everyone I've checked the whole thing has been progressing much faster than on the Tsiolkovsky. The two days that they had might actually be reduced to less than one for those already infected here_."

"Understood. Keep working on it. How many people are confirmed infected?"

"_Only thirty so far_," Crusher replied. "_Out of a crew of a thousand that isn't exactly bad news. But with this disease apparently able to turn up wherever it wants without warning... So far the only good knews is that we've tracked the infection back to people's drinks; apparently something happens to the water which creates this. I'm still running tests, but I'm going to recommend that we put out a temporary order to stop people drinking_."

"We'll be looking at a mutiny if we try that now," Picard pointed out.

"_We'll be looking at a lot of infected people in the near future if we don't_," Crusher pointed out, her air of resignation suggesting that she knew she would be in for long hours in the near future. "_I'll keep you informed. Crusher out_."

Picard paused for a moment after the screen went dark, thinking about how to proceed. The problem was a tricky one, since without some decent advice on how to proceed he wasn't really in a position to make an informed decision.

Still contemplating it he stood, wandering rather than striding out onto the bridge. "Mr Data-"

A three tone alarm cut through what he planned to say, followed by an announcement. "Warning. Bio-hazard detected on ship's bridge. Lockdown in progress." All of the bridge doors gave an extra hiss and clunk as they sealed themselves.

For a second Picard looked around, wondering where that alarm had come from, wondering where it could have been originating from. The alarm merely meant that the disease had been detected, not that someone was definitely infected...

His eyes settled on the glass of tea in his hand. He'd replicated it a couple of minutes earlier, just before calling down to sickbay.

"Mr Data," he said, his voice a bit shaky despite his efforts to keep it under control. "Your tricorter."

Data frowned at the captain, then followed his gaze to the glass. He slipped the tricorter off his belt and scanned the glass. "I can confirm that this drink is indeed infected captain."

"Data, I drank from this glass within the last minute. Certainly since the last scan."

Almost clinically, Data switched the tricorter's focus, scanning the captain instead of the drink. After a few seconds he nodded. "I can confirm that you are infected as well captain."

"Data I replicated this drink within the last few minutes. It's been through at least one scan without triggering an alarm; something must have happened during that time which could explain this."

Nodding, Data sat down again and pulled up the sensor records. As Picard watched the screen divided to show additional timeframes. "Each of these covers the apparent period prior to the scan detecting the infection. I have been looking for any indications of common unusual occurrences during these periods, and have so far found nothing."

"Get a science team onto it; we've surely got enough samples by now to be working with."

"I will investigate further," Data assured him.

Uncomfortable with this new development, Picard sat down in the captain's chair, unable, due to the lockdown, even to retreat to his ready room to escape the nervous gazes of those who now knew him to be infected.

It had been thirty minutes, and eight more infection sites, before the science team came back with a possibility. Picard didn't waste time; he had already caught himself on the verge of trying to lower the temperature on the bridge, and he couldn't afford to keep the other senior officers out of the loop. Riker, Troi and Crusher were in on the conference call straight away.

"_We weren't sure where to look to begin with_," ensign Shu admitted. Picard didn't remember her as such, but he vaguely recognised the oriental features from the personnel files. That didn't help as such, since it could mean anything from a near court martial incident to promotion prospects. "_So we went back and looked over the Tsiolkovsky's records as well in case they'd noticed anything_."

In the background the rest of the science team was still at work; Picard guessed that this was merely the first idea that they had come up with rather than the overall consensus.

"_The Tsiolkovsky's science teams reported a change in the EM output of the star, not consistent with what they were expecting as a result of the collapse. That was just before our projected start time for the disease appearing. From there we tracked back through to the specific incidents that we've been looking at. The EM anomalies dipped just after the Tsiolkovsky crew all died, then picked up again just before we started getting alerts about infections over here. There are specific peaks, in amongst other peaks admittedly, which are unique to the periods where the disease appeared on the Enterprise_."

"_Are you saying that the star is attacking us_?" Riker asked bluntly.

Shu paused, as if not sure how to proceed. "_I'm not saying anything either way sir_," she said cautiously. "_All I'm reporting is that the EM activity correlates with the appearance of this disease on both ships as far as we can tell. Now the EM itself can't be doing that directly, so... We think that it would have to be just a side effect of something that we can't currently detect_."

"_Captain_," Troi broke in, "_ensign Sudil reported that we were being watched earlier. Just before the first signs of infection showed up. I think that he's picking up the attention that someone is paying to this ship. If we withdraw, it should at least prove whether this is a localised effect_."

"How exactly can ensign Sudil be aware of this if no one else is?" Picard asked. He noticed Riker treated Troi to a questioning look there, as if this was something that he had been meaning to ask himself.

Troi seemed to gather her thoughts carefully here. "_Ensign Sudil has... Deathwatched_," she announced, somewhat cryptically. Before any of them could ask what that meant she continued. "_When a telepath is inside a person's mind at the point of death it affects their abilities. Sometimes it weakens them, sometimes it strengthens them. Sometimes, it skews them. Ensign Sudil is... Sensitive... To things that other telepaths or empaths, myself included, aren't aware of. I think that we need to take it seriously_."

Picard frowned, wondering why he hadn't heard of this before. He was starting to have a hard time concentrating, and the heat was starting to get a bit oppressive. Idly he wondered whether he would be able to just turn it down a little; surely he couldn't be the only one who felt how hit it was right now-

"Captain?" Picard looked up to see Data looking at him, his face approximating a concerned expression. "Is something wrong?"

"_I think he's starting to succumb to the disease_," Troi announced. "_Data, I need you to take command of the bridge; if anyone is immune to this then you would be. Set a course to get us away from the star. A couple of light hours at least. We'll re-evaluate from there. And see if we can organise a crew to bring the Tsiolkovsky with us_."

"Understood Commissar," Data replied. "Helm, set a course away from the star, maximum alacrity, warp five. Set our target distance for two light hours. Mr Worf, contact the team on the _Tsiolkovsky_ and have them slave their helm to ours. Once that is done we will leave."

"Approaching destination point," the helmsman announced. "Coming out of warp."

"Ensure that the _Tsiolkovsky_ comes out within transporter range," Data ordered. That was an issue; with space being as vast as it was, and the speeds that things moved at warp speed, overshooting your target and having to trawl for three or four hours using the impulse drive was an unfortunately common event.

As the warp field collapsed and the stellar indicator chart reverted to the near-space view that was the default for sublight travel, Data looked around at Picard.

The captain's condition had deteriorated somewhat to Data's eyes during the twenty minutes that they had taken to accelerate away from the star, travel the two light hours, and decelerate at the other end of their journey. Clearly the assessment that Doctor Crusher had passed onto them that the disease was progressing faster than expected was accurate.

Trying to calculate the progress of the disease was tricky for Data. He hadn't bothered to memorise the initial reports from the _Tsiolkovsky_, preferring instead to simply timeline the major events that he was aware of. As a result he found himself trying to match incomplete information from both sources. The error factors in both situations were starting to get on his nerves.

There was no immediate improvement in the captain's condition that Data could see when he turned around to look. That was to be expected to some degree; the immediately visible symptoms were caused by alcohol in the body and that might not simply vanish.

Moving over to the captain, Data pulled out his tricorter and started scanning. He was, peripherally, aware of everyone on the bridge paying attention to what he was doing. It was obvious that they were doing so, yet from the fact that they were spending most of their time looking at their consoles he suspected that they were trying to be subtle about it and look like they weren't paying attention to him. This was one kind of behaviour that he still had trouble understanding.

The scan revealed no actual change in the captain's condition. Data listed this as a positive sign; nothing had gone more drastically wrong at least. They had also had no new alarms come through since leaving orbit around the star; another positive point, and perhaps a more definite one.

Ultimately, Data concluded, they were into a waiting game.

Picard rubbed at his temples as he settled himself at the conference table. One advantage that he was coming to see of synthohol was the distinct lack of any kind of hangover at the end of it. He presumed that was what he was suffering from in any event; such things were almost a thing of the past.

"So... We are clear of whatever this effect was," he said, unsure of whether it was meant to be a question or not.

"It would appear so for the moment," Data agreed. "It has now been twelve hours since we left the star and we have had no reports of new cases. Alcohol breakdown has been consistent with normal conditions since that time as well. All cases of infection have reported as returning to normal now."

"What about the disease itself?" Picard asked. That part he had been a bit unsure about, since it had mostly been dealt with while he was in the initial stages of recovery, or in bed sleeping it off.

"It's still just an inert item," Crusher admitted. "It's not doing anything that we wouldn't expect it to. Whatever was making it have an effect is clearly still back at that star. For safety we should ensure that it's been removed totally from everyone's systems, but once we've done that I think we can turn the bio-filter back on."

"You mean it's switched off?"

"Only the specific settings relating to this particular problem. We didn't have much choice in the end," Crusher admitted. "The contagion doesn't appear to break down and still triggers the bio-filter even when it's fully inert, as it presently is. Once we've finished tidying up we can do a final scan of the ship and then bring it back online properly."

"What about the _Tsiolkovsky_? How can we deal with that?"

La Forge shrugged, putting his answer in before Doctor Crusher. "For now we'll just have to use environmental suits whenever we're over there. We don't have the capability to man it and run a full clean-up of it. In any case, Starfleet may decide to simply mothball it; it was due to be retired in the next few years anyway."

"Very well, I'll notify fleet DAC and see what they want to happen to it. I'll need reports from sickbay and engineering regarding the state of the ship before I let them know so that they can make an informed decision."

"I'm still cataloguing what exactly this stuff does," Crusher admitted. "I'll see what I can do about it though. I should have a proper report with you in the next day."

"Very well. I will hold off until eighteen hundred tomorrow. In the mean time I need our science teams to work out whether it is safe to return to that star and continue observations. I suspect that the answer will be 'no', however I need to ask. We also need to try to work out what we know about this situation and what occurred here. Is it something that we will need to worry about again?"

No one seemed to want to answer that one. Eventually Troi offered her opinion. "Ensign Sudil reports that we stopped being observed at the same time that we left the star. Based on that, and the timing of when things started to go wrong here, I suspect that we left whatever was causing us trouble back there. The issue, captain, is whether this was the only thing that we would have been facing there."

"You mean that it may have been able to attack us in other ways," Worf said.

"We have to consider that possibility," Troi pointed out. "I'm not exactly keen to be a test subject though. For now I'm recommending that we simply quarantine this star and continue our observations from a somewhat more significant distance than we had originally been planning."

"Agreed," Picard said. "I'll pass that recommendation on as well. Commissar, can you add a report regarding ensign Sudil's... Feeling that we were being watched. Whatever else happens, it's apparently the only solid evidence that we have of what is going on here."

"Aye sir," Troi replied.

"Unless there's any other business? Very well," Picard said when he received no replies, "we all have our jobs to do. Dismissed."

Picard didn't get right down to writing his reports.

The holoscreen in his ready room that mimicked a window out into space and gave the room a more expansive feeling was currently angled back towards the star. Standing in front of the holoscreen, Picard gazed across the billions of kilometres to the star that they had been forced to abandon.

Twice, since the launch of the _Enterprise_. Twice they had run into something more powerful than them. At Farpoint Station the entity who called himself Q had chosen to bloody their nose; their survival, Picard reckoned, was owed largely to Q's own interest in them rather than their success in passing his test. And now they found themselves under attack from... A star? Could it really be that unusual?

Once again the universe had shown them how powerless they were. Picard hoped that he remembered this lesson properly, so that the next time he wouldn't have to face it again.


End file.
